UW Health Sciences Educators Honored for Nursing Journal Article

A former dean and faculty members of the University of Wyoming’s Fay W. Whitney School of Nursing, along with members of the Wyoming Institute for Disabilities (WIND), have been honored for their work on an article published in The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing.

Article contributors are Mary Burman, who served as dean of the nursing school from 2008 until her retirement in 2019, along with Nancy McGee, a clinical associate professor; J’Laine Proctor, a clinical associate professor; Ann Marie Hart, a professor and Doctor of Nursing Practice Program director; and associate directors from WIND, Eric Moody and Canyon Hardesty.

The article, titled “ECHO: A Model for Professional Development in Nursing Through Learning Networks,” is the recipient of the 2020 Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing Innovation Award. It focuses on methods and technology to help nurses stay current and apply new knowledge to their practices.

ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) is an evidence-based professional development approach that can help nurses stay current and apply new knowledge to practice.

“I would hope that nursing would adopt ECHO as a way to bring professional development to nurses across the country in a variety of settings, especially in rural areas,” Burman says.

The abstract published for the article gives a summary of the project, stating: “Health research is published at a breathtaking pace and quantity; however, even when research is systematically developed into best practices and/or clinical guidelines, it often is not implemented into practice. The purpose of this article is to describe ECHO as a model for professional development and capacity building through learning networks. This article describes the ECHO model, evidence supporting its use, the infrastructure needed to implement an ECHO network, and two nursing ECHO learning networks.”

The full article can be found at https://journals.healio.com/doi/10.3928/00220124-20210315-09.